Faculty for 2014-2015

Erica Shirts

Director of the Duke University String School. Teacher of Violin, Viola, Chamber Music, and the Beginning Violin Group Class.

After receiving a Bachelors of Music from the University of Michigan, Erica Shirts earned a Masters of Music and a Performer Diploma at Indiana University. She received her pedagogical training from Mimi Zweig as well as certification in the Suzuki method. Erica taught private violin lessons, group classes and theory classes at the world-renowned Indiana University String Academy, part of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Erica has primarily studied violin with Ms. Zweig, Aaron Berofsky and Gerald Elias, as well as quartet studies with the Pacifica Quartet and orchestral studies with Jorja Fleezanis and Steven Shipps.

Erica, a native of Utah, is currently the Associate Concertmaster of the Fayetteville North Carolina Symphony and regularly performs with the North Carolina Symphony, North Carolina Opera, and the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle. She regularly plays chamber music on the viola as well at the violin. Erica has also served as Violin Director for Kidznotes, an after-school program for under-served students in Durham and Raleigh based on the model of El Sistema.

Dorothy Kitchen

Founder of the Duke University String School in 1967 and currently Director Emeritus. Teacher of Violin, Viola and Chamber music.

Dorothy Kitchen began her studies at Eastman School of Music, finished Phi Beta Kappa at Case Western Reserve University and took her Master's Degree from Brandeis University. She also studied at the Longy School of Music and at the University of London on a Holden Prize Fund Fellowship.

Her teaching experience has spanned forty years, beginning as Director of Children's Chamber Music at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass., to twenty-three years of intensive summer chamber music camps. She has done many workshops throughout North Carolina, taught for fifteen summers in the Camp Musicale de Leogane, Haiti, and for eleven years at UNC-Greensboro. She was the Youth Chamber Music Professor in Lima, Peru for the IV International Festival. She has served as state chairman for North Carolina Music Teachers Association, as a judge for Allstate orchestra, has given master classes at UNC-Greensboro, Methodist College, Appalachian State University and Virginia State University. She received the Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Music from the North Carolina School of the Arts and the North Carolina Symphony's Maxine Swalin Outstanding Music Educator Award.

Mrs. Ktichen was Associate Concertmaster of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra for fifteen years and is a member emeritus of the St. Stephen's Chambers Orchestra. She has soloed with the Dayton Philharmonic, the Greensboro Symphony and the St. Stephen's Chamber Orchestra. For six years Mrs. Kitchen was part of the Kitchen-Nicolson Baroque Duo.

Mrs. Kitchen as been a Board Member for the Durham Symphony, and currently she is the Co-Artistic Director of the St. Stephen's Concert Series and an associate board member of KidZNotes.

Stephanie Swisher

Interim Director, Director of the Beginner Ensembles, Teacher of Violin and Chamber music.

Stephanie Swisher attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and North Carolina State University and graduated with a B.A., cum laude. She was awarded a music scholarship from both UNC-G and the Shenandoah Conservatory. For many years she has performed as a violinist in the area. She been a member of the Tar River Symphony, Durham Symphony Orchestra, Raleigh Symphony, and Raleigh Civic Symphony.

Ms. Swisher joined DUSS in October 1995 and is now its Interim Director, as well as the director of the Beginner Ensembles and conductor of the Intermediate II Orchestra. She is also a teacher of violin and chamber music.

Carlos A. Bardales

Teacher of Cello

Carlos A. Bardales was born in Tela, Honduras. At an early age, he began taking cello lessons from Jerry Withkowsky and Max First in the Victoriano Lopez conservatory in San Pedro Sula Honduras. After playing cello for three years, he won his first audition to be part of the advanced chamber orchestra of the school which only two students cellist took part of it.

Being the youngest cello player at the San José Costa Rica Symphony Orchestra from 1982 to 1986 has been one of his greater achievements. In those years, while completing his high school in Costa Rica, he took cello lessons with Dianne Buchianeri and Dan Neal. Also, he was a member of the San José Costa Rica Youth Symphony Orchestra. When he finished high school, he was accepted at the Inter American Institute for Instrumental Studies where he studied theory with Miriam Accame and performance with Dan Neal and Elliot Cheney. Apart from playing chamber music, he periodically took part in master classes; the one that stands out the most was his playing the cello for Maestro Adolfo Odnoposoff.

When he graduated from the American Institute for Instrumental Studies he became a teacher at the youth program sponsored by the San José Costa Rica Symphony Orchestra. In 1983 Mr. Bardales was invited, as a performer and student, to participate at the Pablo Casals Music Festival in San Juan Puerto Rico.

Andy Bonner

Teacher of Violin

Andy Bonner is an adjunct violin teacher at Duke University, and will soon graduate with a Doctorate of Musical Arts from UNC-Greensboro.

Andy grew up in Durham and studied with Duke String School founder Dorothy Kitchen and Ciompi Quartet member Eric Pritchard, and was a 1999 winner of the Durham Symphony’s Young Artists Competition. His education continued with a B.M. from the Eastman School of Music and a master’s degree in education at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Andy has performed in several acclaimed small ensembles, such as the Duke New Music Ensemble, Eastman’s OSSIA ensemble, the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra, and the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, as well as several symphonies.

Robbie Link

Teacher of Bass and Cello

Robbie Link is one of the most active musicians in North Carolina. A performer and teacher of the double bass, cello, electric bass, viola da gamba and violone, he also runs Red Hawk Music, which does repairs, sales and rentals of violin family instruments.

Mr. Link free-lances and records with many jazz, chamber music and folk music ensembles, and enjoys performing everything from Baroque to Bluegrass. He taught bass at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 15 years and now maintains a private teaching studio in addition to his DUSS duties.

Mr. Link attended the School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana and the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He has performed with the North Carolina Symphony, The Opera Company of North Carolina, North Carolina Theater, the Richmond Symphony, and the Louisville Symphony as well as with many jazz notables including Maxine Sullivan, Tal Farlow, Mose Alison, Mark Murphy, Carol Sloane, Margaret Whiting, Bobby Enriquez, Joanne Brackeen and Scott Hamilton. He has also appeared on numerous jazz and folk music recordings.

Shelley Livingston

Conductor of the DUSS Youth Symphony Orchestra and Intermediate I Orchestra; Teacher of Violin, Viola and Chamber music

Shelley Livingston, Conductor of the Duke University String School Youth Symphony Orchestra and the DUSS Intermediate I Orchestra is recognized for her many contributions to the arts, both locally and internationally.

As guest artist at the Laredo Institute in Cochabamba, Bolivia, she conducted master classes for advanced violin students. While there, her students performed with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Cochabamba in La Paz. Her talents and expertise as conductor, ensemble coach, private violin teacher and performer have guided students to top honors in public, private and charter schools in Texas, North Carolina and Connecticut.

Ms. Livingston attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the University of North Texas, where she received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Performance. As Director of Orchestras at Orange Charter School, she provided opportunities for performance and partnership in the world of string education for families and communities who have discovered the joy and beauty of music.

Ms. Livingston also performs with the Durham Symphony, serving as principal second violin and she has been a violin teacher in a program for minority and disadvantaged students called “Young Strings of the Triangle”, sponsored by the North Carolina Symphony.

Ms. Livingston may be contacted at shelleyl@duke.edu.

Jessica Long

Assistant Conductor of Intermediate II, Teacher of violin

Jessica Long studied both violin and piano extensively during her school years. She has been involved at DUSS since high school in the orchestras, chamber music, and assisting and teaching at the summer camps. In 2008 Jessica began her apprenticeship at DUSS during which she taught violin for 5 semesters under the direction of Ms. Stephanie Swisher while also gaining experience in conducting and teaching. On completing her internship, Jessica became a DUSS teacher in fall 2010. She currently accepts beginner-intermediate violin students while continuing her studies in violin and pedagogy under the direction of Mrs. Kitchen.

Rob Rempher

Conductor of Intermediate II, Chamber Music Coordinator, Teacher of Violin, Viola and Chamber

Robert Rempher received his Bachelors Degree in Violin Performance as well as a Performers Certificate from Purchase College, State University of New York. He has been a member of the Chattanooga Symphony, Kalamazoo Symphony, Southwest Michigan Symphony, and Garden State Philharmonic as well as having played with the South Bend Symphony, Greater Lansing Symphony, Battle Creek Symphony, Greater Bridgeport Symphony, and New Rochelle Opera. Since moving to North Carolina in 2007, Mr. Rempher has been an active chamber musician as well as playing regularly with the NC Opera.

Matt Stutzman

Teacher of Music Theory

Matthew Stutzman earned his Bachelor’s of Arts in Music Education from Vandercook College of Music (Chicago, IL) in 2004. He moved to Durham, North Carolina where he began teaching music lessons and coaching small ensembles for the Duke University String School in 2005. Mr. Stutzman currently teaches music theory, which includes ear training, music history and the fundamentals of music composition and transcription, at the Duke University String School.

Mr. Stutzman is the current orchestra director at Sherwood Githens Middle School (Durham, NC), and since his arrival in 2006, the orchestra program has tripled in size under his leadership. He also works as an audio engineer, producer, arranger, and studio musician in the recording industry. Mr. Stutzman performs regularly in local venues on violin, cello, and drums.

Sangeeta Swamy

Teacher of Violin and Viola, and Teacher of Music Mindfulness

Dr. Sangeeta Swamy is an award-winning musician and Board Certified Music Therapist. She has performed nationally and internationally as a violinist, violist and chamber musician, and currently performs with the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle. She received the Louis & Annette Kaufmann Award for Chamber Music, was a prize winner in the Fischoff and Coleman Chamber Music Competitions, and was awarded an Arts Corps Fellowship and Chamber Music America Rural Residency Grant, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Helen F. Whittaker Fund. She has performed as a baroque violinist with Apollo’s Fire, The Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, was a founding member of the Chagall String Quartet, and has performed on All-India Radio, Vermont Public Radio, at the Banff Music Festival, the Madeline Island Music Festival, the Julliard School of Music, and at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Since 1987, she has taught violin students at Oberlin College, Naropa University, The Fairmont Fine Arts Center, and in her private violin and viola studio, to students ages 4-80. Sangeeta began studying the violin at age nine, with Marty Steiger and John Kendall in Edwardsville, Illinois, and began playing viola at age 15. She received her Bachelor of Music Performance degree from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, a Master of Music Performance and Suzuki Pedagogy from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Kathleen Winkler and Donald Weilerstein, respectively. She also holds a PhD from Lesley University in music therapy.

Associated Duke Artists

Hsiao-mei Ku, a Naxos Artist, is a violin professor in Duke University's Department of Music and a member of the Ciompi Quartet. Besides concertizing with the Ciompi Quartet both in the States and abroad, Hsiao-mei pursues her passion for researching and performing works stemming from her Chinese heritage. A major project has been to unearth and introduce the violin works of the leading 20th century Chinese composer Ma Sicong. Her two CDs, “Violin and Piano Musicby Ma Sicong (I) and (II)", were releasedby Naxos in 2007 and 2010 respectively. Professor Ku made her début at age seven in her native China. She began her professional training three years later at the Central Conservatory in Beijing, at which time its president was none other than composer Ma Sicong. Ku performed on many occasions for China's leaders and foreign dignitaries before coming to the U.S.. Ku is engaged widely as a soloist, concertmaster, and chamber musician. Concert tours take her around the world, from the United States to major cities in Europe, South America, the Middle East and Asia. Since 1999, Prof. Ku has held the post of Visiting Professor of Guangzhou Xinghai Conservatory, appointed by the Department of Culture in Guangdong Province, China. She has lead DukeEngage China/Zhuhai program since 2010.

Eric Pritchard isa native of Durham, New Hampshire, studied at the New England Conservatory, the Indiana University School of Music and The Juilliard School, where he received a Master of Music in 1985. His principal teachers were Joseph Gingold, Ivan Galamian, Eric Rosenblith and Giorgio Ciompi.

Mr. Pritchard has performed as concerto soloist with orchestras including the Boston Pops and the Orchestra of New England and has served as Concertmaster of the Columbus Symphony, the Opera Company of North Carolina and the Spoleto Festival. He was awarded First Prizes at the London International String Quartet Competition and at the Coleman and Fischoff national chamber music competitions. He was also the winner of the National Federation of Music Clubs Award in violin in 1981.

Since 1995 Mr. Pritchard has been first violinist of the Ciompi String Quartet and Professor of Violin at Duke University and he was previously first violinist of the Alexander and Oxford String Quartets. His solo and chamber music performances have been recorded on the Naxos, MSR Classics, Albany, Amplitude, Arabesque, Carlton, CRI, Gallo, Gasparo, Mastersound, Pro Organo, VAC, and Verdi labels. Mr. Pritchard resides in Durham, NC with his wife, Laura Lawton and sons, Shea and Aaron.